Getting connected
Which mesh is right for you?
Match your goal (replacing broadband, off-grid messaging, or licensed amateur data) to the type of mesh network that can actually deliver it.
- Difficulty
- Beginner
- Time
- 10 min read
- Cost
- Free
Updated 29 Oct 2026
Mesh networking covers three quite different things that share a name. Choosing the wrong one is the commonest way to waste money in this hobby, so decide what you want to achieve before you look at hardware.
The three goals
1. "I want to replace or supplement my broadband." Only community Wi-Fi meshes (and related fixed-wireless commons) do this. They are community-owned networks run largely by volunteers that provide internet access to members through upstream connections, but they exist in specific places: NYC Mesh in New York City, Guifi.net mainly in Catalonia and the Valencian Community, and Freifunk mainly in Germany with some communities in Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg and France. We found no UK Wi-Fi community mesh group in our research. If you do not live near one, this route means founding a network, which is a multi-year community project rather than a weekend purchase. See join a community Wi-Fi mesh.
2. "I want resilient messaging that works when the internet or mobile network does not." This is what LoRa meshes are for. Meshtastic and MeshCore are the two big text-messaging meshes; Reticulum is a more general networking stack that can run over LoRa, TCP, Wi-Fi and other media. No licence is needed in the UK within the Ofcom limits, hardware starts at tens of pounds, and the value depends entirely on how many other people near you run nodes.
3. "I hold an amateur radio licence and want high-speed data between fixed sites." AREDN runs 802.11 hardware on amateur allocations. It needs a licence, and amateur rules (as summarised in our UK radio research) forbid encrypting traffic to obscure its meaning. It is built for amateur and emergency data. Whether it can carry general internet access depends: amateur rules restrict content, and we could not confirm AREDN's own policy on general internet access.
Comparison
| Wi-Fi community mesh | Meshtastic | MeshCore | Reticulum | AREDN | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carries internet traffic | Yes (where the network has upstream links) | No (text, position, telemetry) | No (messaging only) | No: its own network layer; can use IP as a carrier | Depends: amateur rules restrict content; we could not confirm AREDN's own policy on general internet access |
| Typical data rate | Wi-Fi class; Ubiquiti rates its PowerBeam 5AC 5 GHz point-to-point radios at 450+ Mbps TCP/IP | 0.34 kbps (Long Moderate) to 10.94 kbps (Short Fast); Turbo presets are not in EU_868 (UK/EU) | LoRa class, text-oriented | Works down to 5 bit/s; depends on the carrier | Wi-Fi class; not quantified in our sources |
| Radio licence (UK) | None (licence-free Wi-Fi bands) | None (868 MHz SRD band) | None (868 MHz SRD band) | Follows the band used | Amateur licence required |
| Hardware cost | Router or antenna kit; install donation at NYC Mesh | Boards from roughly £25 to £40 (LocalMesh's self-reported figures for MeshCore-class boards) | As Meshtastic | As Meshtastic for LoRa; free software for internet use | Commodity 5 GHz hardware (MikroTik, Ubiquiti) |
| Where it works | Specific cities only | Anywhere, but only useful where others have nodes | Anywhere; strong UK presence | Anywhere with a carrier | Mainly US (not quantified in our sources); 46 nodes in a UK-and-Ireland box |
| Setup effort | Install booking, often a rooftop | Flash a board, pair a phone | Flash a board, pair a phone | Highest: command line, config files | Licence, firmware, site planning |
Sources for the table: NYC Mesh, Guifi.net and Freifunk entries in our network directory; preset rates from Meshtastic's radio-settings page; the Reticulum 5 bit/s figure from its manual; the AREDN node count is a worldmap snapshot of 2026-10-29 (nodes seen in the last 7 days, counted inside a loose UK-and-Ireland bounding box). Costs are indicative and some are self-reported by LocalMesh.
Which one, step by step
Work down the table. Stop at the first row that matches.
| Step | Question | If yes | If no |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Do you want to replace or add to your home broadband? | Go to step 2 | Go to step 4 |
| 2 | Is there an active Wi-Fi community mesh in your city (NYC Mesh, a Guifi.net area, a local Freifunk community)? Check find a local mesh. | Join it: join a community Wi-Fi mesh | Go to step 3 |
| 3 | Are you willing to start a local group and find an upstream connection? | Read the groups' wikis first; expect a long project | Stay on your ISP; add LoRa for resilience (step 4) |
| 4 | Do you hold an amateur licence and want fixed-site data links? | Look at AREDN | Go to step 5 |
| 5 | Do you want to try something today without buying anything? | Zero-hardware start | Go to step 6 |
| 6 | Are there MeshCore or Meshtastic nodes near you? Check the maps. | Pick the network with more local nodes; see hardware buyer's guide | Either is workable, but you may be the first node; see the note below |
| 7 | Do you want to build your own private network, or tinker with a general stack? | Reticulum with an RNode | Meshtastic or MeshCore |
Meshtastic or MeshCore?
Both use LoRa on the 868 MHz band in the UK, and many boards appear in both projects' supported-device lists (check the flasher for your exact board before buying). The difference is in routing. Meshtastic uses managed flooding: nodes rebroadcast up to a hop limit (default 3, maximum 7). MeshCore uses repeaters and room servers; ordinary client devices deliberately do not relay, and direct messages learn a path after the first one floods. Both projects are very active, and the right choice is the one with more nodes near you. Details are in how mesh routing works.
If you want to try one, see flash Meshtastic or flash MeshCore. To use a phone client, see clients and apps.
Resilience, honestly
A LoRa mesh helps when the internet is down only if it was already built before the outage, has enough nodes in the right places, and the people you want to reach carry compatible devices. Think of it as a supplement, not a lifeline. Resilience in practice goes through documented cases, including their limits, and the ISP as a single point of failure covers why this matters at all.
What we have not verified
- UK limits quoted here are from Ofcom IR 2030 version 1.15 (March 2023). A newer version may exist; check Ofcom's site before relying on exact figures.
- The AREDN "no general internet access" point follows from amateur-radio rules rather than a statement we found on an AREDN page. Confirm against AREDN's own documentation.
- Node counts on different networks mean different things (installs, recently heard nodes, registered nodes). Do not compare them directly.